Weird Sleep Habits of Neurotic Adults

When it comes to sleep, I’m a modern-day Goldilocks, always searching for what’s just right.

My bedtime routine involves heating my wheat bag (made from wheat that my parents grew on their farm), fluffing my two pillows (one flat, one fluffy), positioning my three blankets perfectly, and tossing and turning and shifting until I find my spot, the one that’s just right.

Whatever easygoing nature I have gets tossed in the laundry bin when it’s bedtime. If my above-mentioned routine isn’t enough to weird-out my husband, I have some other sleep-isms: I can’t sleep if my feet are hot. I need a fan (or fresh air) on me at all times. My feet need to hang over the edge of the bed. I wear fluorescent earplugs.

Nothing says sexy like earplugs.

Except purchasing my own, I-do-not-share duvet (I’ll take the least-hot one, thank you very much, Mr. IKEA). My own blankie may have actually saved my marriage; at the very least, this purchase was cheaper (and less Flintstones-like) than buying twin beds.

“White socks are sexy,” said no one ever. “But…check out those chevrons on that weighted blanket!”

My latest blanket purchase was my Mother’s Day gift. I convinced my husband I needed a weighted blanket made by my friend, owner of Hippo Hug.

My friend started making weighted blankets (and stuffed animals) to help kids with autism and special needs.

And then along came people like me.

Now she also makes weighted blankets for neurotic adults with sleep issues people like me.

My blanket weighs 16 pounds. I adore it. It’s like I have a man on top of me, without the hair and elbows. A very light man. A stick man, perhaps.

When I sleep with my weighted blankie, I don’t toss and turn. In fact, I barely move. If I do move, I get a workout. Then I log it on my My Fitness Pal.

Apparently, I roll myself into a Sarah burrito at night, which is no biggie in the summer, but Ryan seems to be fighting me back now that winter’s coming. Apparently, I fought him off with my elbow into his neck one night.

What I’m trying to say is that I may need that weighted blanket. Also, I’m definitely logging tossing and turning as exercise now. Why didn’t I think of that earlier?!?

I have sleep apnea, so I sleep with a mask. It’s dead sexy. Yes, I sound like Darth Vader but I don’t care because for the first time in about two decades, I am sleeping well.

My husband is not *as* delighted with this newest development, though he is very happy to no longer be kept awake because I’m snoring or he’s waiting for me to start breathing again. (I used to stop breathing for 30 seconds at a time, 32 times an hour. Crazy, scary stuff)

Now that winter has arrived, I wear socks to bed, but my feet have to be out of the blankets and Mark has to stay on his side. His feet cannot touch any part of me, least of all MY feet or I will kick. Hard.

I guess in a former life I was some sort of cliff dweller, because I have to sleep on the very edge of the bed. I tell my boyfriend that only 18 inches of the bed is mine because he hogs it all, but I know the real truth. 🙂

loved this! Currently needing a blankie somewhere between a sheet and a duvet and a bed much bigger than the current one and an extra side car for my transformer-toddler and a special pillow for preggie hips… I used to sleep easily but can relate to this at the moment!

Fun reading in the comments too! I am also a feet out person, and I keep my room cold all year long. Then I snuggle down in the blankets. And I’m a two pillow girl too. Also one fluffy and one thinner, but not too thin. But I hate blankets that are too heavy. I like them fluffy and light and not wrapped too tight.

I’ve been told that I snore, but, being asleep, I’ll just have to take their word. Although it did seem strange when i woke up to have a pillow tied to my head.

While I read this post, I though I’d had the worst attack of ‘floaters’ in a long while until I realized that your web page had snow on it. Just what I needed to aid and abet those nasty things in my eye.

I have to have sound while I sleep, so a fan is always on for white noise, but not ON me. Facing away. Also, I can’t have anyone touch me while I’m sleeping. No cuddling! Talk about sexy. I also need to have one foot out from under the covers, or possibly just a knee.

My kids used to toss and turn like crazy when they were wee. I would burrito them when they were tiny, then sleepsack them later. I wonder if this weighted blanket thing would have helped more.

That’s a great idea! And a great description of what it’s like to sleep under a weighted blanket. My husband and I are completely sleep incompatible. I need to be very, very bundled with everything tucked in. Like a cocoon. My husband needs basically the polar opposite of what I do.

Since the kids came along (our kids are teens) my wife does not go to bed at the same time that I do. I always leave my bedside table lamp on when I go to bed, so I know when she has come to check in on me. She turns the light off, sometimes wakes me to say good night.

Sleep is for the young. At my age, you get in bed and wonder how many times the hour on the clock will change before you fall asleep. Then, you sleep a little while and wake up and start it all over again.

I felt like I was reading a diary that I didn’t remember writing. I require the 3 blankets and the 2 pillows (one fluffy and one flat). I also require a body pillow, a habit I became addicted to with pregnancy. BUT there is no freakin’ way my feet could stick out! That’s just monster-under-the-bed bait. Thank you for the link to your friend. My son has autism, so I’m very familiar with weighted blankets, vests, etc…, but I’ve also been searching for something heavy for myself to use that wouldn’t make me dissolve into a puddle of sweat.

I could be captain of the Canadian Olympic Sleeping Team, really. As long as they’re OK with someone who needs a mouthguard to prevent her teeth from wearing down from clenching her jaw while she sleeps. (The mouthguard is also dead sexy.)

I’ve used earplugs for so long now that just putting them in is a sleep trigger most of the time.

When I’m really going for seductive, I put moisturizer on my heels, wrap my feet in plastic wrap, and slide socks on to keep the plastic in place. Men love that.

Let’s see, I think you’re aware of my odd sleep habits. I like it freezing cold so I can bury under the covers, but if it’s too warm, I only cover my legs. I sleep with a flatter pillow under my head, a lighter one on top, and a body pillow for my side. I also have ear plugs (I’ve found a love mustard yellow kind that is just the right firmness) and top it off with playing music on my iPod with earplugs in my ears all night (song for the last year on repeat: Michael Nyman’s “The heart asks pleasure first”).

That’s right, I’m the world’s lightest sleeper and you might almost appear normal next to me. 😉

I am so getting one for my wife. We love heavy blankets and usually have a stack on the bed that looks like we are trying to recreate the princess and the pea story. Hey, it’ll be a surprise, so don’t tell my wife…

I might need that weighted blanket for my husband – to keep him immobile in the night. If I sleep alone, when I wake up in the AM I don’t even have to make the bed b/c it’s still perfectly in place. W/ my husband though, it looks like a bomb went off.

Reblogged this on quirkywritingcorner and commented: I’m not admitting to any weird sleep habits, unless you count that my husband and I like to hold hands until we fall asleep. I’m usually in slumberland long before him.